Users can retrieve e-mail messages from various mailboxes on their device. For example, a user may have one or more e-mail accounts with different account providers, such as an employer, an e-mail service provider, and the like. Under the ubiquitous Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for retrieving e-mail messages, a message may comprise a Unique Identifier (UID), one or more flags, a header, and a content part (text and/or attachment).
One of the disadvantages of existing retrieval schemes is that they do not account for user experience and a likely immediate need of a user. Existing methods are slow from the perspective of a user. For example, once a user initiates a synchronization process on a mailbox, it may take a significant amount of time (e.g., tens of second to minutes) before the user is presented with a screen of useful information about messages in one of the user's mailboxes.